Lies About Cholesterol

Nothing has been more unjustifiably vilified in the health sphere than cholesterol.

The fear of cholesterol was due to the work of one man, Ancel Keys. He claimed that the more fat and cholesterol you eat the more fat and cholesterol travel to your heart arteries, clogging blood flow, and causing heart problems.

Keys came to this theory by finding cholesterol in the vessel blockages of victims of heart disease.

This hypothesis is based on flawed science that was never proven in clinical trials.

The idea that the fat you eat makes it intact through your digestive system and lodges itself in your arteries is completely unfounded

And yet, that’s where we stand today.

These ideas were parroted so many times that it became an absolute truth that cholesterol clogs arteries. But we know better now…

CHOLESTEROL IS GOOD FOR US

Cholesterol is in all of our cells and it’s essential for proper cell function. Our bodies are very well-oiled machines and it’s really efficient in maintaining balance. If you eat more dietary cholesterol, your body simply doesn’t make as much.

Cholesterol serves us and helps us.

Cholesterol…

• Builds cells
• Makes hormones
• Gets synthesized into vitamin D
• Produces bio acids allowing you to digest fat and absorb nutrients
• Repairs damages to the arteries
• Is an integral part of the immune system
• Is essential to brain health
• Promotes longevity
• Supports nerve functions

You can see that cholesterol has many important functions for our bodies. We shouldn’t aim to lower cholesterol as a signal of good health. Did you know that low cholesterol levels lead to higher all-cause mortality? That’s right, people with lower cholesterol tend to die sooner from various reasons. (Source)

When Cholesterol is elevated in the body it means it needs to repair damages. Damages that are mostly caused by excess sugar, refined carbohydrates, and vegetable oils that are heavily present in the Standard American Diet (SAD) and put forward by health authorities.

If you drive by a house on fire and you see firefighters at the scene, do you automatically think they are the ones that caused the fire? This is exactly what happened when Ancel Keys found cholesterol in the arteries of victims of heart disease.

Not all cholesterol is the same and like we said before, it’s not there to clog our arteries but to repair and heal them. LDL in particular, has very healing properties. Again, LDL was deemed as “bad” cholesterol due to the same narrow view of the science.

LDL cholesterol has to be oxidized to cause any harm.

Healthy LDL has an array of vital functions. LDL is an integral part of the immune system protecting our bodies and clearing pathogens from circulation. This is a very good explanation of why high fat dieters with high cholesterol don’t get sick often.

3 years and counting over here??… Not a mere cold or sore throat.

Cholesterol helps transport fat around the body so for us fat burners it only makes sense that our cholesterol pool is bigger.

Now when you have an unhealthy diet high in sugar, refined carbohydrates and vegetable oils you are flooding your system with small, dense, oxidized, sticky LDL or type-B LDL. Like tennis balls to Velcro, the inflamed artery walls are the perfect place for these dense sticky particles. It’s in this situation that cholesterol can contribute to blockages in your arteries, but cholesterol is never the cause of blockages.

When you have a healthy diet high in good, healthy fats your body pumps good, healthy cholesterol (HDL, and large and fluffy LDL or type A LDL).

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Where was our medical community to protect us from this misinformation? Well, the sugar industry is just THAT strong.

There have been outspoken whistleblowers that have cautioned authorities about the lack of evidence that vilified fat and cholesterol. Back in 1957, several scientists came out against Ancel Keys’ claims that fat and cholesterol caused heart issues…

Dr. Fred Kummerow has said, “Cholesterol has nothing to do with heart disease except if it’s oxidized”. Dr. John Yudkin had a hypothesis that sugar was the culprit of all the issues fat and cholesterol were being accused of.

Unfortunately, the food and sugar industry were already too big to compete with and they saw an opportunity in Keys’ hypothesis and backed him which made Keys the authority in diet related issues. These other doctors were silenced and some were shunned by the medical community for their claims against sugar.

Fast forward to today and we’re still in the same paradigm regurgitating the same wrong information about cholesterol.

Due to public interest more studies are being done without the bias from the sugar industry and we can now see how important cholesterol is.

We’re building a document that will help you speak to your doctor about this. In it we will have questions to ask your doctor about your cholesterol levels, what to look at when you get your test results back, and what additional tests you can take to make sure you don’t have the oxidized LDL in your system.

If you want it please send us an email to be put on the waitlist for it at hello@rewindyournutrition.com

(Sources: Lies My Doctor Told Me, The Big Fat Surprise, Science Daily, The Cholesterol Code)